


Lost On The Air

by squire



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon Setting, Canon compliant for the events of TFA, Drinking, Established Relationship, Hopeful Ending, Infidelity, M/M, Pre-TFA, Reconciliation, break-up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:43:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7113877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the last two and a half years, Kylo Ren has been Hux's partner in almost every sense of the word. </p><p>Across the table in the officer’s mess, Hux is looking into the face of the exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This angst-ride has been inspired by @generallyhuxurious' (GenHux) drabble to the promt "She's my wife." Since they didn't want to elaborate on that particular idea beyond the frame of the drabble, I asked if I could court that idea in their stead - and with their permission, I pretty much eloped with it. So here it is, three chapters of really awful people being mostly awful for most of the time.
> 
>  
> 
> Beta'ed by MildredandBobbin, whom I dragged into Kylux hell by a way of thanks. I'm a horrible friend, I know.

Hux is thirty three and his prospects have never looked more promising. The excavation works on the frozen planetoid rotating idly beneath their feet had begun last week. In less than one year, this nameless rock will turn into a weapon whose name - and the name of its creator - will be repeated throughout the entire Galaxy. His father's training program for the troops, enhanced and implemented by Hux, is producing reliable manpower and strengthening the First Order with every passing day. He's in charge of the _Finalizer_ , the honour just as great as the responsibility, eighty thousand souls under his direct command. The Master of the Knights of Ren, allegedly the most powerful Force user of his generation, has been his co-commander for the last three years.

Hux had been bitter, at the start. His relish over the command of the _Finalizer_ was tainted by the fact that he had to share it, especially with someone outside of the ranks of the First Order. But although he could barely approve of Lord Ren's methods, he's learned to respect his results. Respect eventually grew into an admiration that has naturally evolved into attraction. For the last two and a half years, Kylo Ren has been his partner in _almost_ every sense of the word.  

Across the table in the officer’s mess, Hux is looking into the face of the exception.

"... and of course, the shift rotation on the base is somewhat different from that on the spaceship. The squadrons stationed planet-side get replaced regularly though I've noticed some squadron leaders filing requests to stay down longer..."

"It must be a human resources nightmare, I imagine."

Hux smiles. It's taken him a lot of practice to make it look easy and natural. "You have no idea."

His companion leans back in her chair, a cold and silver mirror of that smile flitting over her face. "This project is astounding, Hux. I'm impressed."

"A pledge," Hux lifts his glass, "to the success of _Starkiller_."

Their glasses clink. A com beeps softly in the inner pocket of Hux's coat. With an apologetic smile, genuine this time with the breath of relief he feels at the interruption, Hux opens the line.

"Yes, petty officer?"

_"Sir, Lord Ren's shuttle is approaching the ship, ETA eighteen minutes. Request for landing, sir."_

Hux keeps his face black as a sequence of numbers runs through his head. The walking and speed-lifting distance from the mess room to the hangar, the time the _Eliminator_ squad will need to board...

"Request granted." What else can he say? "Relay to Commander Ren that I am expecting the full report of his mission, including the reason it's ended a day ahead of schedule, immediately after landing."

_"Understood, sir. Thanisson, over."_

"That's _the_ Lord Ren I've heard about? The Knights of Ren - they're real?"

Hux makes a grimace. "Real enough for a monthly headache over the expense budget."

"I think I'd like to meet him."

"That can be arranged," Hux replies evenly, without any hitch. "Though I would not recommend that immediately after his arrival. Ren's raids at the Resistance outposts often result in him returning covered in blood."

She scrunches her elegant, aquiline nose.

"He really is special, isn't he?"

"He stores the ashes of his enemies on a tray in the interrogation room," Hux deadpans.

Grey eyes flash with amusement. "An unusual method - but not without effect, I guess."

"That's Ren in a nutshell," Hux agrees and pushes his chair away from the table to get up. "Thank you for personally overseeing this shipment, Leah. Those collimators are going to be of crucial importance."

Leah takes the hint and rises gracefully from her seat, the blonde bun on the back of her head regulation tight and gleaming as if wet, not a hair out of place.

"Thank _you_ for giving me the tour of the base. It's an impressive achievement. The Land Council is going to be very proud of you."

 _As they should be_ , Hux thinks, and then chances a question: "And you?"

"Hux, you know I don't give a fuck about Land Council," Leah replies in the same grave, solemn tone, and then they both laugh. It's the most companionable moment they’ve shared since her arrival on the _Finalizer_.

On the way to hangar 84 Hux keeps thinking of the number of _Finalizer's_ operational hangars and the odds of Ren's shuttle landing in the same one that's currently holding the _Eliminator's_ command shuttle, getting ready for a take-off. But when they arrive at the hangar, the _Eliminator's_ crew already lined up along the ramp, he can see the black, imposing silhouette of the Upsilon class shuttle manoeuvring into the designated bay. Of course they would navigate him into the one hangar that's already fully lit and with all posts manned because of the _Eliminator's_ departure. Of course.

Hux doesn't quicken his pace. If he's losing a gambit, he must keep up the appearance of winning the entire game. He sees, out of the corner of his eye, the black shuttle's ramp go down with a hiss of pressurised air. The officers and Stormtroopers from the _Eliminator_ around him salute. Leah stops at the foot of the ramp, turns to face him. At the other end of the hangar, a tall figure in swirling black appears in the back-lit shuttle hatch.

"Until next time, my dear," says Leah and leans over, her height easily spanning the short distance between them without having to stand on her tiptoes, and kisses him - a short, dry, regulation-approved kiss. Then she salutes, executes a sharp ninety degree turn on her heel and marches off into the shuttle, her entourage following.

Across the buzzing, bright hangar, a black void in a silver-lined and blood-streaked mask seems to be staring directly into Hux's very core.

 

*

 

"Who is she?"

Ren is pacing across the limited space between the door and the desk in Hux's quarters. Of course he'd stormed in as soon as the shuttle was secured and unloaded. Of course he'd plunged right into the confrontation. Hux was ready.

"A high-ranking officer on the _Eliminator_ ," he says, calm in the face of the storm. "We met over the delivery of the main collimators for the beam focusing–"

"Cut that bantha shit, Hux. Who is she to you?"

Hux looks to the side, then back. Weighs carefully his next words.

"No one that should make you feel undermined, Kylo."

"So that's it?" The pacing stops and Kylo runs a hand through his hair, specks of dirt flying everywhere. "Just a fling on the side, to kill the time while I'm away? How many of those have there been already, Hux?"

"Calling me a whore won't make me any more willing to discuss this with you," Hux snaps.

"Well imagine this from my point of view!" Kylo yells. "I wrap up the mission a day early because I fucking _missed_ you and when I get back I see a woman kissing you in front of the whole squadron, claiming you like her property! Does the 'not in front of the crew' rule only apply for me?"

Jealousy and possessiveness to boot. Hux shouldn't have expected anything less.

"She won't be coming back again, is that enough for you?" Hux would have to make sure of it. He has friends in the Admiralty, he can get a say in the _Eliminator's_ assignments at least until the _Starkiller_ is finished.

"No, she won't," and the low threat in Ren's voice makes Hux's head snap up in alarm.

"You don't–"

But Kylo is already pulling up the list of officers aboard the _Eliminator_ on his datapad. Hux tries to knock the thing out of his hand but it's too late.

"Leah Narrat- _Hux_?"

The datapad falls from Ren's hand onto the thin-carpeted floor with a dull thud, the screen cracking and blinking out of life. His body sags, all anger seeping away from him. His eyes are two dark wells of confused betrayal in a pale, bloodless face.

"What are the odds you just love your sister very much?" His face is doing something strange, mouth twisting as if attempting a chuckle and all that comes out is a wet, cut-off sound.

A tiny part of Hux briefly wonders what kind of family Kylo Ren grew up in but his stomach feels too heavy to laugh. This - how he handles the next moments - suddenly feels _very important_.

"She's my wife."

Kylo closes his eyes and draws a shuddering breath. His lips do another strange twist and then they pull into a smile - a horrible, self-deprecating thing.

"I wasn't supposed to know, ever, was I?"

Hux rises from behind his desk, moves quietly but swiftly, blocking Ren's way to the door. He needs to explain this in a way Ren will understand - or rather in a way Ren can be placated with.

"You didn't need to know because it means nothing to me."

"I didn't need to know you’re _married_?"

"It means nothing to me," Hux repeats, louder this time. "Our families arranged this for us when we were still children, and married us off as soon as we turned twenty. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. A thing of prestige. She secures me connections and support in the Home World, I can promote her way through the ranks within the Fleet. We can't stand each other, personally. She's not my type, I'm not hers. We meet as little as we can."

"Why don't you get a divorce?"

Hux blinks at him. Had the man even been listening? But Ren presses his ridiculous reasoning further.

"You're a general now, most respected, your project has the approval of the Supreme Leader himself. She's a group-captain now, and with her age she'll be promoted to general before she turns forty. Why do you keep up a ruse you no longer need?"

Hux laughs, all resolutions about not showing any mockery to this situation gone with the wind because Kylo's naïveté is just too funny.

"So I should drop it for what - so I can marry you?" he snorts, deliberately ignoring the way Ren's eyes go wide with hurt. "I don't know what depraved ways the Republic has instilled into you but that's not how things are done in the First Order."

His words and the accompanying sneer are sharp, sharper that they should be, but it's a sting of injustice buried deep in Hux's heart and he's angry at Ren, angry that he's had to go and twist it around again.

By all accounts, Ren should be wrecking Hux's quarters by now. And yet, the knight is surprisingly steady. As if the shock has completely thrown him off his usual path of destruction. He's not raging against the blow he's suffered - he's trying to find ways around it. Too bad his ideas are based entirely in some fantasy land that Hux cannot even begin to imagine.

"I thought you just liked your privacy," he mutters. "That you didn't want the crew wasting time gossiping, or something about morale... I didn't know I was just your dirty secret, Hux."

For the first time in their relationship, Hux is the one who wants to smash something. He resorts to pacing, unconsciously mirroring Ren's previous agitation, until he remembers himself and stops with his back against the viewport.

"How does it change anything between us? We are co-commanders, colleagues, we share a bed almost every night, how is that any different just because there's a woman carrying my name?"

It was a mistake, leaving the door unguarded. Kylo makes for it immediately.

"If you can't see that, I'm afraid I have to rescind the terms of our 'mutually beneficial arrangement', as you in the First Order like to call it," he says, the choice of words a bitter mockery of Hux's own explanation.

"Ren," Hux says, feeling his voice crumble at the strain of keeping it even, of not making it a shout, or worse, a plea. "She has nothing but my name."

Kylo pauses at the door, braces one hand against the doorframe, head hanging low. Then he straightens and half turns - just enough for Hux to see his eyes, resigned and beaten and sad.

"She has more than I ever had."

Somewhere behind Hux's temples the stress breaks into jagged shards - frustration, anger, resentment towards this impossible man who just couldn't be made to see _reason_. Hux's name - as if Kylo ever wanted - could want - _should_ want that! Hasn't Hux explained the situation, not five minutes ago, in every exhausting and ugly detail?

"You're not even trying to understand–"

"Not your name," Kylo's upper lip curls into a sneer at the word. "Your honesty."

It must be the shock, Ren's volatile temper frying up something in his brain, Hux thinks absently, because somehow the man's got things completely backwards.

"I cheated on her for the last two and a half years," he points out, ignoring how crude it sounds. Kylo can't ignore it, if the wince is anything to go by, or he just chooses not to.

"She knew you would," he says, slow and measured, almost patient. As if he finally learned patience only so he could drive Hux mad with his ludicrous logic. "You said so yourself: she views this union the same way you do. She married you with eyes wide open, and knew never to expect anything of your relationship."

 _Expect anything of our relationship_ , Hux repeats in his head, and now he's really angry, his very teeth aching with annoyance over this _child_ who cries that sea came and washed away his sloppy sand-castle.

"Why do you _always_ have to want more? Why can't you just make do with what we have? What do you _expect_ from me? The rest of our lives together? My undying ––"

"That," Kylo finishes what Hux can't, in his quiet, resigned tone. "Eventually," he amends it, as an afterthought. "I thought we've been getting... I thought we _could_ have got there."

He doesn't even have the decency to look ashamed at the admission and Hux hates this about him, hates how easily Ren can pick his emotions, how carelessly he lets them maul him around.

"You've already got as much as I can give." Hux masters his tone again, gritting his teeth against the rise of his temper. He has to handle this as he always does - with calm.

Kylo shakes his head. "That's just the thing – I didn't know there were limits."

Hux laughs, once, sharply, as if the sound could cut through the fog of absurdity around Ren's brain. Then he tilts his head to look slightly through his lashes, consciously relaxes his posture into a more open, non-threatening stance, lowers his voice. He fixes his eyes on Ren, on the heavy contrast of the black of his robes against the pale grey wall.  

"Everyone has their limits, Ren. But this... this doesn't have to be ours. This marriage is just a sham - what we have, is real. You know that."

"This marriage," and Kylo has to draw an extra breath just for the word and it emerges from his mouth tainted, like on a huff of poisonous air, "this _marriage_ is real enough for you that you wanted to keep it hidden from me. Real enough for you that you don't want me to ruin it. That's... General, that's too real for me."

The door whooshes open and clicks shut. Hux stares at the empty spot at the door and tries to blink away the lingering negative image of Ren, the contrast now burned into his retinas like an illusion, floating before his eyes wherever he looks.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like there should be dubcon warning for this chapter - except it's not exactly that. There's drink, for one, and even though consent is explicitly stated, half-way through Hux realises that he doesn't want *just* sex.

With the heavy earthworks going on the planetoid below, the machinery literally tearing the crust apart and hollowing out the core, Hux has very little time to notice the absence of Ren in his bed, or his quiet companionship on the long evening shifts. Not that they had been exactly quiet lately: Ren had made his dislike of  _ Starkiller  _ very clear, stating that no man-made weapon could be a match for the Force. He kept repeating that relying on engineering and manpower only was a mistake bordering on blasphemy, and Hux had had enough of these arguments. Supreme Leader backed Hux's project, and that was that.

He wonders, though, how long will Ren last. They've fought in the past, and it always had ended in Ren punching out whatever issues he had into the punch bag at the gym and crawling back into Hux's bed, in the middle of the sleep cycle and with no words. No words always worked well for them.

 

*

 

The officers lounge is empty this late into the Gamma shift, the lights all switched off save for one overhead strip running along the top edge of the bar. It casts the counter, the almost empty bottle of Seikoshan liquor, Hux's glass, and the tips of the loosened strands of hair falling over his forehead into his eyes, into an eerie shade of glowing blue. It leaves the corners of the room mostly dark, and yet Hux can, out of the corner of his eye, see the way the darkness is thicker just so in one of them. Ren sits there, silent and unmoving, he's been sitting there all evening, watching Hux down glass after glass and quietly scaring away everyone else until it's just him and Hux.

Not that Hux cares for company. He came here on a purpose, and that purpose is currently about two fingers away from the bottom of the bottle.

Hux swivels around on his stool and stabilises himself with an elbow against the counter. Outwardly, it's a casual, but still perfectly collected pose. He ignores the way the room swims around him and fixes his eyes into the void between the silver lines on Ren's mask.   

_ Come on _ , he thinks.  _ Take it off. It's been weeks, Ren. You must have missed me. You must be aching for me. Can't you feel how much I'm aching for you? That spat was ridiculous. Are you done sulking? Are you ready to come back to me? I'm not mad at you. Drop the act and come back. _

Somewhere during Hux's concentrated broadcast Ren had moved; Hux blinks to focus and reels a little when he finds him next to his stool, a gloved hand gripping his forearm with a slight tug.

"You're drunk, General. I think it's time you retired to your quarters."

"I said, take that damn mask off."

The vocoder doesn't pick up sighs or breaths but Hux still sees the slight heave of the broad shoulders. Then the latches hiss and click and waves of black hair pour down Ren's nape, his face pale and tight in the stark, single-wavelength light.

"Now, will you come?"

"Depends if you make me," Hux grins. He's going to be appalled with himself once he's sobered up but that doesn't matter now. He slides off the bar stool and plasters himself flush against Ren's body. There's nothing accidental in the way he leans into him, nothing drunken or fumbling in the way his hands slide through the folds of Ren's tunic and find the fastenings of his belt on the first try. He can feel the heat of Ren's body through all those layers, and doesn't that make his alcohol-thinned blood run even faster. It's been too bloody long.

"Hux." It sounds tired. The mouth Hux has been eyeing turns downcast, tight-lipped. He looks up. Ren's eyes are averted, and he's flushing faintly. Could be a trick of light but Hux knows his tells, knows him inside out. He presses one thigh between Ren's, cant his hips upwards. Even the thick layers of fabric and leather can't hide the fact that Ren must have missed Hux just as badly. He's hard, caught between the bar counter and Hux's body, and Hux dips his head to hide a vicious smirk and rolls his hips, up and forward, the friction sending sparks up his spine. Beneath his hands, Ren's body shudders.

"You're drunk, Hux."

Ren has his head tilted back, holding off, throat working on hard swallows, and Hux seizes the opportunity to nip along the edge of his jaw. "Stop fishing for excuses. You want this."

"I don't–"

The belt slides off, the clatter of the polished buckle jarringly loud in the empty lounge. Hux wastes no time in diving his hand inside Ren's trousers and rubbing him through his underwear. His fingers tingle with pleasure at touching the hot, throbbing weight of him again. Ren tries to squirm out of his grasp but it's half-hearted at best.

"You want me," Hux insists. His own cock is almost painfully hard, straining in the confines of his tightly fitted uniform. He wrestles with his own belt, one handed and frustratingly clumsy with drink.

And then there are fingers on his jaw, forcing his head up, the stitching on the gloved fingertips digging sharp lines of pressure in the hollow under his ear, on his pulse point, just next to the corner of his mouth. It's not yet pain, but close, the sensation distinct like pin pricks in the wool of Hux's alcohol-muddled brain, and he cannot bite back the moan if he tried.

Ren's eyes are boring into his with a desperate intensity, and  _ oh _ , Hux missed this too, having this man's full attention, stirring up his hunger and feasting on his want. Staring into Ren's eyes is like staring down the barrel of a blaster gun, the black of his pupils hiding a spark of energy that can kill a man, and Hux likes the sight, likes to imagine he's playing with the trigger. His abdomen clenches with anticipation, the heat there spreading through him in a heady rush. He returns Ren's look with one of challenge.

Something closes off in Ren's eyes. Like a shutter going down over the lens, and Hux would draw back and frown and analyse it but suddenly there are lips on his and Hux thinks  _ victory _ and forgets all about that odd little thing.

All too soon he realises he shouldn't have. Ren is kissing him and it's  _ wrong _ . The man used to pour his very soul into every kiss, be it devouring or gentle, there was always want and fondness in various measures, recklessness to take and desire to give in a heady mixture that was entirely Ren. Now it's just a mouth meeting and parting with his, every slide of lips and nip of teeth and brush of tongue just the way Hux likes it, practiced into perfection, and utterly dispassionate. It's like kissing a sex droid.

But before he can register the thought properly, before he can start paying attention to the alarm controls blinking to life at the back of his fogged brain, Ren is saying something. Hux has to squint at him, up close and stupid, just to make sure the mask is really off -  _ and how it could be on when we just kissed  _ \- because of how flat and mechanical the voice sounds, and there are words, too - and then he is spun around. The hard edge of the counter top digs into his shoulder blades, Hux's hands are trapped in the tight embrace that's more like an immobilizing grip and then Ren is grinding his hard cock against Hux's hip and Hux is too drunk and too horny to think. He wants this, he wants Ren and now he's having him, and they can talk later, there'll be time for apologies and forgiveness and gentleness later but now Hux needs to get his hands on Ren and show him how much he'd missed him–

He can't. Above him, all over him, Ren is just taking what he wants, and that doesn't even seem to be Hux. He's chasing his own pleasure in frantic, inelegant rutting against Hux's body, fully clothed, just the simplest mean to satisfy the most basic need. When he bites on the side of Hux's neck, it feel like nothing more than a muscle memory, just the need to have his teeth latched onto something when he comes. He comes quickly and silently, only a clench of his jaw at the edge of Hux's peripheral vision, his head hanging over Hux's shoulder, face out of sight.

Hux is still trapped under a mass of overly warm body, his cock still hard and desperate for any friction, and his insides are lurching with confusion. Cold sinks into his gut even as his groin throbs with heat. He tries to will down the impulse to thrust, to grind his hips into Ren, he tries to push him away - and away he goes, but not enough. Ren eases off Hux only just enough to sneak a hand between them, past the loosened belt and unfastened opening of his trousers and right where Hux wants it - except he doesn't, not anymore. Not like this.

"Ren," Hux tries his voice, panicking at the rush of physical sensation, so familiar, pulling his body towards orgasm down the well-worn path. He tries to fight it but he's been worked up too high, weeks of cold bed and tonight's drink leaving him right on the edge. Ren's hand works him with merciless, dreadfully effective pulls, wringing the orgasm out of him like water from a dishrag.

Hux feels his climax like a cold needle stabbed into his lower back, quick and unsatisfying, the peak washed away by a wave of burning shame. Ren wasn't even looking at him when he brought him off, the act a mere courtesy one could bestow on a stranger. He didn’t even take off his glove. A Correllian whore he'd had on his first Academy break had shown him more attention - passion -  _ affection _ \- than Ren did now.   

Ren wipes off his soiled glove on Hux's shirt, straightens his trousers, fixes his belt. Hux sags against the counter, too sick to move. Never in his life had he felt so humiliated, so  _ used _ . Where did Ren learn how to do that?

"I've had the best teacher," crackles the electronic voice next to his head and Hux whips his head up - too quickly, he's going to be sick – to find Ren has already put his mask back on.

The sight bring on fresh wave of nausea and this time, Hux doesn't fight it. He doubles over and empties his stomach right there on the floor, heaving the drink and the heartbreak out of him, hoping that with one, he can get rid of the other.

It doesn't work. He's still heartsick when he slides to sit on the floor, head tipped back against the stool leg.

"I'll send in a droid," Ren says, all emotion - if there is any - flattened out by the vocoder. Then he's gone.

A little cleaning droid activates itself on schedule - it's after mid-shift, the beginning of another cycle. A med droid whirrs into the room some time after that, bringing Hux medication against nausea and keeping its electronic eye on him all the way to his quarters. It doesn't ask any questions and Hux is glad for the small mercies.

Lying in his bed, he remembers the words Ren said to him just after the kiss - the kiss that should have served Hux as a warning, if only he had been less drunk, less cocksure of himself.

"You still don't understand, do you?" Ren had said.

_ Yes, I do now _ , Hux thinks and succumbs to dreamless sleep.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The Alpha shift drags on, dull and uneventful, giving Hux enough time to think on what he's going to do, what he's going to say to Ren. No words aren't going to work for them any longer.

It's some time into the Beta shift when he realises that he's been given so much time to think simply because Ren had never shown up on the bridge, the whole day.

"Commander Ren has taken the shuttle and a squadron of Stormtroopers for a mission on direct orders from Supreme Leader Snoke," the petty officer informs him when he asks.

Hux chooses to overlook the faint puzzlement in the young man's voice. Of course, as a co-commander, he should have been informed of this mission beforehand. How very like Ren, running from his problems instead of solving them.

A very small part of him points out that Hux had been conveniently ignoring his problems instead of solving them, and neither strategy proved to be any better than the other.

He pulls up the squadrons assignment files on his datapad. Mission duration: unknown. Mission objective: classified. No personal message from Ren. It's far from surprising but it still stings a little. Ren used to tell him where he was going…

"Very well," he says aloud, crisp and decisive. "Make sure to delete the records of their departure from the hangar and main ship log. The mission is highly classified." 

"Yessir," the petty officer nods and gets to work.

 

*

 

It's months before he has the chance to talk to Ren again. The squadron of Stormtroopers returns to  _ Starkiller _ , half of them fit for reconditioning, and another is gone, the cycle repeating itself every couple of weeks. Sometimes he catches a glimpse of the Commander himself - entering the conference room for a private communication with Snoke or exiting the new interrogation facilities on the base, better than those on the  _ Finalizer.  _ A check with the housing department reveals that at some point, Ren has moved his personal belongings from the spaceship into his new rooms on the base but he never seems to spend a whole shift there, and there's never time for talking.

Hux tells himself to enjoy the peace. He immerses himself in his work, management of the construction of the  _ Starkiller  _ weapon demanding every last bit of his skills. Having the sole command of the  _ Finalizer _ at last is certainly satisfying. If Hux is surprised at first with the amount of freedom he suddenly has, if the freedom feels initially like an uncomfortable void and he has a hard time fitting himself into it, he overcomes these minor annoyances in no time.

That's why it comes as wholly unwelcome news when the  _ Finalizer _ is summoned into the orbit of Jakku, the order with no explanation encrypted within a curt message from Lord Ren and backed by the Supreme Leader himself.

Hux has no choice but to obey and he resents it instantly - this is going to put a delay into the preparations for his weapon going online. It's true that his own presence is no more essential to the setup, the scientists and engineers on their posts know their job, but such a massive shift of Stormtroopers stationed on the base so that a fully operational  _ Finalizer _ could be brought elsewhere is a waste of time and resources. If it's just on some mystical whim of the Force-user, Hux is going to have words with him.

A part of him is looking forward to it. Not arguing - simply seeing Ren again. He misses him, sort of - a phantom ache that keeps moving through his body, never to settle in one place for long enough to get a chance to be cured. Sometimes it’s just an itch to touch warm skin, sometimes it's a sharp pang of pain hidden deep inside his chest that comes out of nowhere – a random sight, a particular smell, a snippet of conversation triggering a memory so vivid that Hux is left winded for long moments afterwards.

 

*

 

Ren's shuttle lands in the  _ Finalizer's _ hangars with a prominent member of the Resistance onboard. Hux considers it's a good cue with which to open the conversation - complimenting Ren on this accomplishment might take off the awkward edge that's bound to be there after so much time of silence, it might polish away some rust from the bridge that used to be between them.

By the time Hux makes it down from the bridge to the prison deck, Ren is already at work in the interrogation room. That's not good. Ren is almost certainly going to be angry that he had to step in where the First Order interrogators failed; for all his bragging about his powers and for all the dreadfully impressive results Hux has had the privilege to witness in the past, Ren doesn’t actually enjoy prying information from someone else's mind. Hux understands that the invasion - if not  _ is _ , then at least  _ feels _ like going both ways, and the stronger the mind of the target, the more painful the process.

So Hux waits in the corridor, keeping a blank face at the background noise of inhuman screams, and in his mind he recites what he's going to say to Ren. An apology will be needed, to placate the man into listening, and once they manage to have a decent conversation…

The screams are jarring, going on seemingly without end. Hux holds himself in a stiff parade rest, a fisted hand pressed to his chest, and tries not to imagine himself writhing under Ren's hand. Would it really hurt so much if he had let Ren look into his head and see for himself the truth of how much Hux misses him?

Then the door slides up and Ren strides out, the anger - as predicted - rolling off him in waves.

"It's in a droid."

No greeting, no hesitation, and the words are so similar to the last thing spoken between them -  _ I'll send in a droid, Ren had said and left Hux in a puddle of his own shame  _ – that Hux suddenly can't hear properly for the ringing in his ears and almost misses the addition: "A BB unit."

All his prepared words are gone, evaporated from his head. He scrambles to recollect and force on a smile.  _ Show him cooperativeness. Goodwill. Offering for a new start. _

"Well then. If it's on Jakku, we'll soon have it."

But it seems that Kylo Ren is having none of Hux's olive branches.

"I'll leave that to you," he scoffs, already half-turned, and stomps away.

 

*

 

Now that -  _ finally _ \- Hux has been deemed worthy of knowing what this mission has been all about, he is suddenly saddled with the tail end of it - the clean-up. Retrieve the droid. How menial. Ordered around, a general of the First Order and eighty thousands souls of his crew, by some self-entitled charlatan outside of the hierarchy of command.

All this Jedi gibberish. For all Hux cares, Luke Skywalker can go fuck himself just the way he's been doing for the last ten years or so. But he can understand that the map falling into the hands of the Resistance would give their enemy an advantage, and he also understands why Ren wants the map so badly: he's the self-professed Jedi killer, he wants to be the one who'll bring Skywalker down.

That's why Hux orders the massive air strike on the Niima outpost instead of the solution that suggests itself - simply send in a squad on speeders, get the droid, disappear without much disturbance. No, the force Hux uses is superfluous and meant to ensure one fact:  _ nobody _ gets the map. Not the Resistance, and certainly not Ren.

Like every act motivated by spite, it turns around on Hux in the end. The droid escapes.

The expensive equipment of Hux's ship falling victim to Ren's fit of rage when he learns about that feels like a deserved punishment. But he does draw a line at the choking of his officers.

 

*

 

"Supreme Leader Snoke was explicit. Capture the droid if we can, but destroy it if we must," Hux defends himself, trying to match the length of his strides to Ren's. From the unforgiving pace Ren keeps, dictating the tempo, never conceding to falling easily into step beside Hux like they once used to do, Hux can tell that Ren can see right through the excuse.

Ren is openly vindictive. Baiting Hux by denouncing his soldiers, insinuating that Snoke should consider a clone army... He knows where to stab, and he keeps twisting the knife. Hux curses himself inwardly even as he falls for the trap and starts defending his men.

"Then they should have no problem retrieving the droid, unharmed," Ren brushes off Hux's claim of the exceptionality of his troops. Hux realises too late that in letting his hackles rise he's played right into Ren's hands - he cannot confess to having deliberately gone against Ren's order, and so the blame falls to his men. It's a power play - a thing Hux used to excel at - and Ren is having the upper hand. And he's using it to subtly challenge Hux's authority - all because he hasn't forgiven him the old lie of omission.

Fine. If Ren wants to behave like a spiteful ex, Hux will act accordingly. He won't have Ren undermining his position before Snoke.

"Careful, Ren, that your personal interests don’t interfere with orders from Leader Snoke," he says coldly. The underlying message is clear.  _ Don't let your bitter jealousy thwart the success of this operation _ .

With a prickle of conscience, he vows to follow his own advice, too.

 

*

 

The worst is, Hux is painfully aware that the Niima outpost debacle was his fault. The reasonable thing to do is to admit this to the Supreme Leader before Ren has the chance to do that, with stars-know-what embellishment.

The giant hologram of Snoke has his soulless eyes fixed into distance, pondering about the last Jedi, new Jedi, Skywalker. Who cares for the Jedi anyway? Certainly not Hux.

Suddenly he knows how to turns the tables. He'll show Ren that he hasn't spent all these months wallowing in grief. He'll make it clear that without Ren, Hux is far more effective and competent than with him.

"The weapon," he starts with assurance. "It is ready. I believe the time has come to use it."

He can feel the dismay radiating from Ren's stiff posture, the slight turn of his mask. It's their old discord all over again. But Hux's plan is truly the best, even without the added benefit of going against Ren: without the Republic to protect them, the Resistance will be useless, and there'll be no danger in them reaching Skywalker first.

Hux receives Snoke's approval and he can't suppress the rush of excitement, satisfaction, smug superiority. Ren's mask watches him go, and if the man beneath it judges him, he does so in silence.

 

*

 

The preparations are nearly complete when they receive the intel that the Millenium Falcon has been spotted on Takodana.

" _ Finalizer _ is yours," Hux says formally. "May you make a better job of capturing the droid than I did on Jakku." It's as close to an apology for his mistake as he's going to give, and Ren accepts that with a tilt of his helmet. Hux turns back to the holoscreens, blinking with the countdown.

When he lifts his eyes a moment later, Ren is still standing there. Looming, silent, and for all his lack of ability to display expression he almost looks indecisive.

"Wasn't it better when we worked together?"

_ Worked,  _ not  _ been. _ But it's something.

"When our command decisions didn't clash at every turn?" Hux allows a tiny wistful smile to pass over his face, blink and it's gone. "Yes, it was."

Ren nods once, abrupt and still so reserved, but something in the air around him is less forbidding. Less hostile. Less opposed to anything Hux might want from him.

"Congratulations," Ren says after a long moment of awkward silence, the static of the vocoder robbing it of all genuineness or irony it could have carried.

"What for?"

"The  _ Starkiller.  _ You're about to fire your weapon." And now, Ren definitely looks uneasy about it. He'd resented the project from the start, and Hux is not about to let him call it a waste of resources or an unnecessary show of power all over again.

"Are you really going to advocate for our enemy and the lives of all those traitors?"

"The annihilation of five planets will cause a great disturbance in the Force," Ren explains, matter-of-fact and just as dismissive of the actual death toll as Hux is. Good. For a moment, Hux was almost worried.

"It could weaken me. It could also make me stronger. I don't know."

Ah. So it's the uncertainty that scares Ren.  For a moment, Hux imagines him becoming  _ stronger  _ with the fear, suffering and deaths of billions, and feels a frisson of awed fear running down his spine.

"It will make  _ us  _ stronger," he says aloud, as firm as he dares. "Go. Bring us victory."

 

*

 

As he watches the beam of concentrated sunlight searing through the sky, the once life-giving energy distilled into something terrible and lethal, he wonders if Ren ever feels pain when he kills.

 

*

 

Ren brings a scavenger girl instead of the droid from Takodana and all goes to hell again.

He's utterly fascinated with her. Like a child with a new plaything. Watching her for long minutes while she's unconscious and wasting precious time that could be spent with interrogation. And then... after just a little dig from her... Ren takes off his mask.

Hux turns off the security footage feed and tells himself it's with disgust. It has to be, that bitter taste at the back of his throat and a memory dredged up out of nowhere, about how long it had taken to Hux to make Ren take off his mask for him. Weeks. Hux had regarded it as a personal victory, a kind of privilege. Seems it wasn't either.

Whatever tentative common ground they might have established before the firing of the  _ Starkiller _ , it's clear that it doesn't matter to Ren in the slightest. Well then. Hux will not be coddling him anymore.

 

*

 

"And the droid?" asks Snoke, and Hux seizes his chance.

"Ren believed it was no longer valuable to us, that the girl was all we needed," he announces without mercy, the enjoyment of seeing Ren flounder in front of his master knife-sharp and chafing at something in him - probably some foolish part that still  _ cares _ about Ren.

Nonetheless, he drenches Ren in the mess of his own making right and square. Let the boy see how the war is won by men. Not by indulging himself in the pretty face of a pitiful girl, but with a decisive and crushing strike against the very heart of the enemy.

Hux leaves the holochamber, Ren's desperate pleas to his master for one more chance with the girl ringing in his ears.

 

*

 

And then Ren's new pet grows claws and fangs and turns on him, and Hux's masterpiece explodes beneath his feet. It all happens so quickly - from the brink of victory straight into absolute disaster - that Hux can't even tell whose fault it is. Probably both of them. They vied for success, each trying to outrace the other, and yet it seems that they were destined to end up together - only not in glory, but in disgrace.

Hux is holed up in his quarters, staring blankly at the star lines behind the viewport, when there's a beep of incoming subspace transmission on a personal channel. A written message. Not even a call, or a recording – just a perfectly clear, legally worded announcement that Leah Narrat-Hux had filed a divorce petition. Please sign the copy attached.

Hux does as he’s asked. He's a dead man walking - he knows it,  _ everyone _ knows it, that he'll outlive his usefulness the moment he safely delivers Ren to Snoke. No need to drag down a promising officer with him. His name shouldn't be carried into the next generation laden with shame.

 

*

 

They'll arrive on the orbit of Snoke's home planet with the start of the next cycle's Alpha shift. Once again, Hux is in the officer lounge after closing hour, having a staring contest with the half-empty bottle.

One of the many differences to the situation of the year prior is that this time, there is no Ren waiting in the corner for his chance to humiliate him. Hux scrapes the bitter film off his tongue with his teeth - this drink is foul, too thick, too sweet, and probably long past its best-before date. Maybe it could kill him before morning comes.

And because all Hux's plans are doomed, probably by some law of the universe, the door opens at that moment and Ren walks in.

"You shouldn't be up yet," Hux mutters. Ren is holding himself slightly off, slanted to one side, his blaster wound barely healed. The scar on his face is still a vivid red.

"Med droids make for dull company." Ren takes the stool next to Hux, wincing as he heaves himself up to sit on it. Hux slides him the bottle, Ren slides it back.

"Can't."

"The Force?"

"Yes... And the medication."

The hesitantly tacked-on amendment makes Hux chuckle. Kylo Ren, confessing to the weakness of having to take pain meds like a mere mortal.

And he is one, all too much of one. He'd been  _ this _ close to dying out there in the snow when Hux found him and Hux knocks down another glass of that filth to suppress the shudder. It seems that no matter how much alcohol warms up his veins, he's never going to get rid of the chill of that deep-frozen snow, flecked with blood…

"You went back for me."

Without the mask, Ren's voice holds so many layers. Hux can't risk looking at him. His empty glass is a safer option.

"Snoke's order."

A chuckle, and then a hiss when the movement jostles the wounded muscles around his ribs.

"You didn’t have any problems going against Snoke's orders before."

Niima outpost floats before Hux's eyes. Why had he been so impetuous, so full of spite at the time? Was it because he still cared?

Even the drink can't fill him up. No matter how much he drinks, he still feels empty.

"Perhaps I just wanted to have someone who'd let me fuck them now that my wife’s divorced me," he fires off, scraping the rock-bottom of his anger, goading.

Ren doesn't rise to the bait. Hux expects a cutting retort about not being a consolation fuck and what he gets instead is a soft whisper:

"Has she?"

"Keep your pity," Hux advises him, pouring himself another glass. His hands shake only a little.

"Of course she has. I would've done the same. She only ever wanted my name, and that holds no value now. Hells, even  _ you _ should be wary of anyone seeing you associating with me."

"Well, I–" Ren begins, something like indignation sparking in his voice but it goes out with another hiss and a squirm on the stool. When he breathes in next, it's deep and controlled again.

"You are not a write-off, Hux. You're still a general of the First Order. You're, once again, the sole commander of the  _ Finalizer. _ Don't give in yet."

Hux's heart aches in his chest, an old, hundred-times folded pain expanding and clogging up his throat.

"You mean, 'don't embarrass me while I still have to look at you.'" The words scratch on his tongue, get caught between his teeth, it's like trying to spit out ground glass.

"Don't do this, Hux," Ren pleads, and there's a hand on his chin - bare hand, this time, fingertips still soft and wrinkled after so much time in bacta. Hux has been ready to fight off jagged insults and harsh accusations - he finds he cannot fight gentleness.

“I do love you, Hux,” Kylo says, somehow managing to stress out every word, each infused with more puzzlement than the last, as if he can’t decide if he’s more baffled by the fact that he does, that it’s really love, or that Hux, of all people, is the cause of that sentiment.

“I tried not to,” and the months of suppressed pain slam back into Hux with vengeance, “I did. It was impossible.”

Hux tries to hate him, and regrets only a little that he can’t: “Why are you telling me now?”

Kylo leans closer, pulls Hux the rest of the way, until there’s nothing between them, no room, no wrong, no hurt, if only for now.

“Because Snoke may succeed where I failed.”

Hux doesn't want to think of that. He's heard the stories - Jedi, Sith, attachments. In his heart, he thinks the stories got it wrong. Attachment is a strength, not a weakness. If they hadn't fought each other the whole time, if they hadn't tried to be strong each on their own, things needn't have ended up like this.

"Come back to me, Kylo," Hux mouths the words into the skin on Kylo's neck.

"When you next see me..." Kylo hesitates, pressing his uninjured cheek against Hux's forehead, breathing in through his nose, "...look into my eyes. You'll know then if I did come back."

 

*

 

Six months pass. Hux, inexplicably, still lives. The war gets harder for a time, with the First Order having to regroup and the Resistance riding the high after the destruction of  _ Starkiller _ , and then it all just... ceases. The raids trickle out, the sabotages grow sparse, both sides lying low.

It's almost as they are waiting, with a bated breath, for something new and devastating to appear on the scene. Something that will shift the precarious balance of the entire universe.

It comes one day, entering Hux's quarters just after the start of the Gamma shift without as much as an if you please, black robes and still the old belt and a new mask, the silver gleaming and already dented in places.

Hux forces himself to stay still and wait. He breathes, hopes, and waits for Kylo Ren to take off his mask. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Also, the third chapter was mainly inspired by @permian-tropos and @generalgignersnaps discussion about "Why the heck did Ren and Hux behave through the entire TFA as if they were bitter exes?"
> 
> My answer is - well, because they were.
> 
> EDIT: This fic has been blessed with amazing piece of fanart by @huxology whose talent is surpassed only by their kindness :) [Go check it out!](http://huxology.tumblr.com/post/145666576693/i-read-lost-on-the-air-by-sinningsquire-and-it)


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